Troopers and Local Football Rivals Team Up to Urge Buckling Up

WHO:

• Major Gerard Coletta, Commanding Officer, Troop D, Massachusetts State Police
• Emily Ring, Brain Injury Association of Massachusetts
• Jennifer Martelli, automobile crash survivor
• Members of the B.M.C. Durfee High School Hill Toppers football team
• Members of the New Bedford High School Whalers football team
• Fall River and New Bedford Police

WHAT: With Thanksgiving Day and busy holiday travel days fast approaching, the Massachusetts State Police, local police, the Brain Injury Association, and members of two rival high school football teams will gather at B.M.C. Durfee High School to raise awareness about the dangers of not wearing a seat belt. Brain injury survivor Jennifer Martelli will share her compelling story of suffering serious injuries while not wearing a seat belt in a crash, and the long rehabilitation that followed. The football players from B.M.C. Durfee and New Bedford will come together - just days before they butt heads on the field on Thanksgiving - to present a unified warning to their peers about the need to wear seatbelts. The event is part of the Commonwealth's Fall 2008 Click it or Ticket Mobilization, a statewide effort funded by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security, that consists of extra high visibility traffic enforcement and public information. The mobilization began Nov. 10 and will run through Nov. 30.

For more information, go to www.mass.gov/highwaysafety.